The Viral App Playbook [Full Leak]

Here’s THE PLAYBOOK you need to read if you’re serious about building a viral mobile app. It’s a goldmine of insights, actionable tips, and proven strategies, shared by none other than Blake Anderson — an app creator with an impressive track record (Call AI at $800K MRR, UMax at $200K MRR, RizzGPT, and more).

Earlier this week, Blake teased the main chapters and ideas of his upcoming playbook, though it’s still incomplete. Many of the lessons he shared align closely with the tactics we use at THE QUEST, so I decided to take it a step further. I’ve enriched it with internal tips, added valuable insights from Blake’s other shared content, and compiled everything here on Medium.

Here is Blake’s original document if it interests you.

1/ Finding your app idea

In this section, we’ll explore what sets a good idea apart from a bad one. You’ll learn which ideation process to follow, how to effectively validate your idea, and how to avoid the most common pitfalls. We’ll also analyze Blake’s apps — both the successful ones and those that performed less well — to draw additional insights. I’ll wrap up by sharing our internal ideation method to help you identify promising ideas.

🔖 In summary:

• Do not create a “social” app.
• Bring a simple solution to a major problem.
• To go viral, your product must interest MILLIONS of people.
• Use social media for idea validation and product vision.

Finding a big problem:
A good idea solves a big problem simply (rather than complicating a small problem). Here are some areas where you can identify major issues to solve:

• Health
• Dating
• Career
• Education
• Discipline
• Addiction
• Finances

Here are the areas to avoid:

• Social
• Entertainment
• Niche hobbies
• Crypto / Web3
• “Cemeteries” (ideas already outdated or obsolete)

To find the problem and imagine a solution, you must adopt a creative ideation process. Everyone has their own way of thinking and expressing themselves: focus on what feels the most natural. Whether it is drawing, taking notes, discussing with others, or thinking alone, the important thing is to let your ideas come without restricting yourself. Test what works for you and push your thinking until you find an idea that truly resonates.

For Blake, it involves studying human psychology and deep thinking in nature → hiking, walking, meditating.

📍 From my side, I met a founder of an app who had the habit of organizing a kind of retreat/vacation (all expenses paid). He would invite about ten people of the same persona (same age, same gender, same interests…) and analyze their daily needs to extract app ideas. If you are a young independent app creator, it will be difficult to find a good idea and develop it correctly without going through a creative process.

The other approach to identify promising app ideas is based on a very analytical and data-driven method.
It involves exploring the App Store, social media, or ad libraries to spot trends and identify promising apps that can be “twisted.”

The problem is that this strategy is already massively used by the majority of big mobile app studios and publishers.
These players have well-oiled processes, significant budgets, and specialized teams. It is therefore very difficult to compete with them on this terrain (and, to be honest, not very intellectually stimulating).

Analysis of Blake’s successful mobile apps:

1/ Cal AI — Calorie Tracker

• Problem: Analysis of dish calories.
• Solution: Photo-to-calorie with actionable, simple, and quick tips.

2/ UMax — Become Hot

• Problem: Analysis of my attractiveness and areas for improvement.
• Solution: Photo-to-score with actionable, simple, and quick tips.

📍 Blake’s successful apps not only solve concrete problems; they also exploit deep psychological biases specific to their target audience. For example: Users of calorie-tracking apps seek constant reassurance about what they eat, their calorie intake, or their progress. Similarly, people lacking confidence seek regular validation to improve their self-perception.

These apps then become genuine reassurance tools, which is one of the major secrets of their success. Another key factor is their simplicity. Each app is based on an ultra-clear central functionality with one action = one result (immediate).

For example, with Cal AI, a photo of a dish leads to a calorie analysis, and with UMax, a face scan leads to an attractiveness score. This simple and direct approach hooks users, while secondary features — like personalized recommendations — fit seamlessly into the main experience. This strengthens engagement and encourages users to return frequently, creating a virtuous cycle.

Analysis of Blake’s less successful mobile apps:

1/ Locked In — Motivation & Alarm

• Problem: Lack of motivation and discipline.
• Solution: Motivational alarm clock with inspiring content.

2/ Fit AI — Gym Workout Planner

• Problem: Difficulty planning workouts.
• Solution: Personalized plans via body scanning.

📍 I find the product vision of both apps quite interesting: they address universal needs (motivation for one and sports planning for the other) with innovative approaches that have likely already proven effective (inspiring content for Locked In and personalized scans for Fit AI).

However, we can draw some lessons from the less impressive performance of these two apps. Firstly, their presentation (description, screenshots, onboarding) does not emphasize their core problem enough, which dilutes the message and weakens their value proposition. Locked In oscillates between motivation and alarms, while Fit AI blends personalized scanning and dietary advice — this can make the app’s purpose more complex to understand than it should be.

This also highlights the importance of timing and momentum. Fit AI enters an already saturated market of well-established fitness solutions, making it harder to stand out. In contrast, Call AI succeeded in a context with less competition for calorie tracking, which worked in its favor.

Lastly, it’s clear that this is a “numbers game”: both apps seem to have less aggressive communication strategies, particularly on social media, which translates to fewer downloads. As a result, they have fewer users and, therefore, generate less revenue.

Validating Your Idea

Social media is not only the best place to distribute your product but also the best place to validate your idea before even developing it. By analyzing your target audience, posting content, and testing concepts, you can quickly gauge interest and engagement around your idea.

Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, X, or Reddit allow you to gather real-time feedback, understand your potential users’ expectations, and even co-create with them. A simple campaign, viral post, or survey can provide invaluable insights into what resonates — or doesn’t — with your target audience.

Example:

Let’s say you have a new app idea — a tool to help people increase their testosterone levels.

Here’s how you can validate it:

1. Create a new account on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, etc.
2. Choose any temporary name (you can change it later).
3. Like & follow idea-related content: masculinity, fitness, biohacking
4. Spend 30 minutes daily intentionally consuming this content.

Over time, you’ll start adopting the mindset of someone fully embodying this idea. This helps you define the app’s core features:

• Answering questions about habits, diet, etc.
• Analyzing the user’s face and body.
• Estimating testosterone levels (use this in your marketing).
• Providing a daily protocol.

“Ideas don’t come fully formed. They become clear as you work on them.”
- Mark Zuckerberg

2/ Designing your app

In this section, we’ll explore how to transform an idea into a clear, functional design. You’ll learn how to structure your app’s features, prioritize the essentials, and create an intuitive and engaging user experience. We’ll also analyze successful app designs to understand what works and why. I’ll finish by sharing our internal design method to help you move quickly from idea to prototype while maximizing your product’s impact.

🔖 Key Takeaways:

• Reduce cognitive load so users can understand your app easily.
• Make the app usable by both a 7-year-old and a 70-year-old.
• Take screenshots of other apps for inspiration.
• Design simple and visually appealing screens, optimized for viral content.

The Initial Design Process:

1. Start with a new Figma project.
2. Find apps with similar features (e.g., UMax for face scanning).
3. Take screenshots and integrate them into Figma for inspiration.
4. Begin designing the user experience (UX) with simple wireframes.

📍 At THE QUEST, we always start by using apps in the targeted niche to intimately understand product mechanisms, incentives, and funnels. After this exercise, we use a tool to export all internal screens of an app and receive notifications when they’re updated. You can find similar tools online (e.g., Mobbin). Once the analysis is complete, we create a wireframe to validate the UX using a dedicated Figma extension. After validation, we move on to the user interface (UI).

The “Shareability” of the App

Most mobile app creators focus on optimizing organic sharing, but very few pay attention to the app’s intrinsic viral potential.

Blake suggests focusing on app screens with high viral potential on social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube.

📍 Mobile apps with “wrapped” features, which offer personalized summaries of specific app usage while encouraging users to share them, are a great example of this strategy. Spotify was one of the pioneers in this space with its famous annual recap of most-listened artists, designed for social media sharing.

Since then, many apps have adopted this mechanic to engage users and boost virality. This year, several “wrap” apps dedicated to WhatsApp emerged and quickly climbed the charts, further confirming the effectiveness of this approach.

Here are some “Good Practices” to optimize your app’s design:

• Make your app easy to understand:
  Users should grasp the purpose of your app within 2 seconds.
• Align with existing content:
  Your app should seamlessly integrate with already-viral content.

When your screens are easy to understand & fit naturally into content:

• It becomes easier to create content and collaborate with influencers.
• Your videos perform better, driving more traffic to your app.

📍 If you’re an independent app creator with a limited budget (especially for advertising or influencer campaigns), your distribution will likely rely heavily on organic growth, at least initially. I recommend designing mobile apps with a high K-Factor (a metric that measures virality), meaning they are built to allow users to easily invite others.

Party apps are a perfect example of the potential and impact of this mechanism: one user with the app can convert their friends into users as well. The ROI becomes even more apparent when you launch ad campaigns and see that your ad metrics (CPI & CAC) combined with your product metrics (referrals, revenue) perform significantly better thanks to a high K-Factor.

3/ Coding your app

In this section, we’ll focus on how to develop your app.
You’ll learn how to choose the right technologies, structure your first iterations, and balance development speed with quality.
We’ll also explore strategies used by successful apps to optimize development costs and accelerate their go-to-market.

🔖 Key Takeaways:

• Use AI as a tutor, but don’t expect it to do everything.
• Avoid over-optimization — some technical debt is acceptable.
• Recommended tech stack: React Native, Expo, Cursor, Supabase, Convex, Superwall.
• If your app isn’t smooth and simple, rebuild it.

Development Tips:

Development is both the simplest and the most challenging task. Simple, because there is now a multitude of tools, frameworks, and resources available to help you quickly create an app. Challenging, because transforming an idea into a functional product requires a clear vision, discipline, and effective collaboration.

Blake sees AI as a great tutor: it can explain concepts, generate code snippets and even guide you in your technical choices. However, it’s not yet advanced enough to write all the code for you. You’ll still need to understand the basics, test your solutions and adapt them to your specific needs.

Key Points to Keep in Mind:

• Debugging can be very frustrating if you’re new to coding.
• Focus on creating something that works and improve it progressively.

Frontend Development

To get started, Blake recommends creating your application with React Native and Expo, a solution that greatly simplifies mobile app development. React Native allows you to maintain a single codebase for both iOS and Android, while Expo offers a set of tools and services that accelerate the process, even for beginners. A bonus tip: use Cursor, a modern editor with AI integration to assist you in real-time with your code. If you’re new to this environment, don’t hesitate to ask ChatGPT for help setting up your project with React Native and Expo to get started quickly.

Backend Development

For backend development, Blake suggests using Supabase or Convex, two modern tools that simplify backend infrastructure management.

• Supabase is an excellent open-source alternative to Firebase, offering features like a relational database (PostgreSQL), authentication, storage, and real-time APIs — all ready to use.
• Convex, on the other hand, provides a serverless, simplified approach for databases and queries, making it ideal for creating efficient backends with minimal complexity.

These solutions let you focus on your app’s features without spending too much time on technical setup, while still being scalable to support your product’s growth.

Monetize Your App

Subscriptions are the most effective way to generate revenue for your app, thanks to their recurring model, which ensures financial stability. One-time purchases can also work, especially for specific or premium features. Ads might be a viable option depending on your app’s type, but they require a delicate balance to avoid degrading the user experience.

Setting Up a Paywall:

• Free trial vs. no trial
• Weekly vs. monthly vs. annual vs. lifetime subscriptions
• Price A vs. Price B
• After action X vs. action Y

📍 You can use Superwall or Adapty to test your paywall models. These tools provide useful features like A/B testing and simplified integrations, though they are somewhat limited in terms of customization and design. If your app requires paywalls that deliver a user experience perfectly aligned with your branding (or for dedicated marketing campaigns), coding your paywalls natively remains the best solution.

Tracking: A Must-Have

Tracking is another critical aspect that wasn’t addressed by Blake. I like to say that without product tracking, you’re blind, and without marketing tracking, you’re deaf. Setting up your tracking early — even with just a few custom lines of code to monitor onboarding steps or key feature usage — is essential.

For product tracking, you can use Amplitude (they offer a startup kit with €50,000 in credits). For marketing tracking, you can use Adjust (the most affordable on the market + I’m sharing a promo in this article).

4/ Marketing your app

In this section, we’ll explore how to attract your first users, whether through organic content on social media, influencer marketing, or paid ad campaigns. We’ll cover where to start, how to prioritize, and dive into key insights and best practices to maximize your marketing strategy’s impact.

📍 This section was not completed by Blake. To expand on it while staying true to his learnings, I used an AI agent to analyze all of Blake’s posts and extract his main takeaways. I also added some homemade hacks to provide even more value.

🔖 Key Takeaways:

• Test everything, and reinvest in what works best.
• Approaches based on capital: Low capital -> UGC, Established niche -> Influencers, High LTV -> Paid ads.
• Prioritize channels where 2*LTV > CAC or 2*RPM > CPM.
• Improve your skills by studying psychology and statistics.

Test everything, and reinvest

Let’s define “everything”:
The reality is that most mobile app marketing strategies are similar. Of course, there are iterations on approaches, formats, funnels, etc., but everything boils down to three main axes:

A/ Organic viral content
B/ Authentic sponsored content
C/ Paid ads

We’ll break down each of these 👇

A/ Organic viral content

You can create different types of organic viral content:

• UGC formats (e.g., Discoverly).

• Faceless formats (e.g., Astroapp).

There are thousands of different organic content formats…

The goal is to find the one that matches your persona, the problem, the solution, and most importantly, your app. That’s why it’s crucial to analyze and test on social media before even creating your app.

If you have a solid app idea, you’ll be able to create winning organic formats even before launch. The only change once your app is live will be the addition of CTAs.

Here are the best practices for most viral organic content:

1/ Hook:
Your content must stop the scroll with an intriguing hook. This can be a hook based on an irresistible and niche promise, breaking news, or something attention-grabbing.

2/ Provide Value:
Your content should deliver value to keep people engaged for as long as possible. In the case of a carousel, the added value should increase with each slide.

3/ Trigger Interactions:
Your content will perform well if it encourages people to share or comment. To achieve this, it should spark some form of interaction — whether through humor, a controversial stance, or another engaging element.

4/ Avoid Being Promotional:
Your CTA should be subtle, sometimes even indirect. The best CTA is to provide value and hint that even more can be found in your app.

5/ Post with the Right System:
Don’t post randomly. If you want to target the U.S., your TikTok account should be managed from the U.S. (proxies are fine). If your account isn’t performing well, it might be worth starting fresh with a new account and warming it up. Once your content gains traction, you can scale by setting up a repost system.

Stay Data-Driven and Focused

Create small batches of organic content each week, run targeted tests, and analyze the results to adjust your content the following week. Once a winning format emerges, adapt it into multiple variations and scale!

B/ Authentic sponsored content

To attract users through sponsored content, you can collaborate with individuals, micro-influencers, influencers, or even recognized experts in your field, such as “key opinion leaders.”

Starting without track-record

In the beginning, you’ll need to focus on a highly targeted and personalized outreach approach. Removing all possible friction is crucial to maximize your response rates and collaboration opportunities.

I recommend reaching out to around sixty carefully selected micro-influencers, with the goal of working with at least twenty of them (33%). Selecting the right influencers is a critical first step. At the start, prioritize quality over quantity. Don’t use up your chances with the biggest influencers in your field without first testing collaborations and formats with other micro-influencers.

You can use tools like Favikon to identify influencers in your niche and analyze their audience insights (including real engagement). These tools will also give you access to their email, but I suggest prioritizing direct messages on social media (TikTok or Instagram), which typically yield better response rates, especially if your approach is personalized, high-quality, and sent from a verified (and popular) account.

At this stage, carefully prepare your proposal:

• Share examples of promotions (created by your team if needed).
• Clearly explain the app’s key feature.
• Offer immediate payment to simplify the collaboration (e.g., €50–100 per post).

By working with these first 20 influencers, you’ll quickly identify those who are effective for your user acquisition and the formats that work best.

Don’t try to impose a single, pre-made template format: you can propose a structure with hooks, visuals of the app, and an angle of approach, but let the influencer adapt the format to their style.

Scale your influence marketing

After achieving initial results, you can start scaling up. To do this, you can automate influencer outreach using AI agents capable of contacting up to 50 influencers per hour on Instagram or TikTok.

You can structure your collaborations by creating a page that details the different possible formats, examples, and tips.

You can also adjust the proposed compensation by combining a fixed payment with a performance-based variable.

If influencer marketing becomes a major acquisition channel for you, consider taking it even further by creating a dedicated community for your affiliate influencers. This community can serve as a space where they share successful ad formats, help each other, and are further incentivized to bring in customers while generating more revenue (this is what Blake did with RizzGPT).

With the right pace, you can achieve up to 400 collaborations per month.

C/ Paid ads

To run successful ad campaigns, start by evaluating whether ads are suitable for your app — not all apps are a good fit. If you have a high LTV, good conversion rates (and ideally a positive K-factor), ads can be a powerful growth lever. Otherwise, they may result in acquisition costs that are too high compared to organic or influencer strategies.

You can launch your first ad campaigns on TikTok with a budget of €500/week per ad group. I recommend creating an ad group with five creatives (same format but with variations). TikTok will quickly focus on the variant with the most potential. I suggest launching META (Instagram) campaigns afterward.

Avoid putting completely different creatives in the same ad group: TikTok tends to boost the one with the best CPM/CTR, but not necessarily the one with the best CPI or revenue conversion (data that takes longer to surface).

The Importance of Creatives

For creatives, the ideal setup is to internalize 80% of the production with a structured testing organization. You can outsource 20% of the creative production to bring in fresh ideas.

Romain, co-founder of Arcads (the first UGC AI tool), shared his learnings about good ad creatives. Here are a few highlights 👇

Good creatives:

• Highlight a human element (UGC or AI-generated UGC).
• Capture attention within the first 3 seconds.
• Are under 30 seconds long.
• Use a captivating storyline (that tells a story).
• Showcase the product (in its context when possible, like Duolingo).
• Include a subtle CTA encouraging interaction (“comment to receive…”).

To find creative ideas, you can use TikTok Creator Search Insights and research trends in your industry.

Campaign management

To effectively manage TikTok and Meta ad campaigns, adopt a batch approach. This helps identify what works quickly and adjust strategies in real-time. For instance, you could allocate a €4,000 budget to create and test 15 creatives each week over six weeks. Each week, analyze the performance of your ads to identify winning creatives (to optimize and create variants) and underperforming ones (to discontinue). Maintain good organization with tools like Notion or Google Sheets to track active creatives and their associated metrics.

On TikTok & Meta, your creatives can burn out quickly, so it’s essential to constantly refresh your content. This is why a fast-paced, batch-based approach is critical. If you have a winning creative, try producing similar ones to maximize its potential.

The Importance of tracking

Validate your tracking setup before launching campaigns. I’ve written a dedicated edition on mobile app tracking: Marketing Tracking for Mobile Apps.

Bonus

In his guide, Blake also emphasizes the importance of building a solid team and shares personal reflections on the subject. While this doesn’t warrant a full section, here are his four key lessons, which may be helpful:

• Find co-founders with strong learning curves and good personal fit.
• Avoid working with part-timers, complainers, or pessimists.
• When outsourcing, work with A-Players.
• Build a team that shares your values and is ready to fully invest in the mission.